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I demand there be a crackdown on excessive celebration. I'm not talking about the controversial yellow hankie that ruined the ending of the BYU-Washington game.
This is about the excessive celebration of University of Miami fans. The way they ran around Gainesville before Saturday's Gators-Hurricanes game made Mardi Gras look like your grandmother's senior center cafeteria. Let me describe the scene, and you tell me if I'm out of line. The once-yearly rivalry (1938-1987, except for 1943) has only recently been revived as an occasional non-conference novelty. In one corner was No. 5 Florida, led by the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. In the other corner was unranked Miami -- a team that:
• was humiliated at the end of last season in its historic final home game, 48-0 to Virginia;
• has a second-year head coach who's still finding his footing;
• has a redshirt freshman quarterback starting his first game;
• oh, and the squad began the day as a 22.5-point road underdog.
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| Miami fans weren't the only ones embarassing themselves during Saturday night's game. (Getty Images) |
There were no "winner goes to the national title game" implications on the line. Why would any 'Canes fan drive north for five hours for this ass spanking?
Well, evidently, this game was seen by Hurricane Nation as a free pass to regain their fabled swagger. Their motto must be: When you've got nothing else to celebrate, celebrate everything else. Certainly, there's honor in supporting your team through feast and famine.
And I'll give credit that Miami leads the overall series 28-26 as well as the meetings in Gainesville 12-9. But c'mon. We're talking about people so eager to recapture ancient '80s glory, you'd think the Hurricanes fans were getting liquored up to invade Soviet Russia.
On any college rivalry weekend, you're sure to see pockets of over-anxious revelers jawing at each other. But I have seldom seen so many people from both fan bases so blatantly have the hot and cold running hate spigots flowing. I'm shocked that on Sunday morning, the campus wasn't littered with 50 chalk body outlines.
As for brazen displays of over-the-top conduct, let me paint two pictures that concern alligator statues on either side of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
At the statue in front of the newly expanded southwest entrance, nearly a dozen Hurricanes fans were jumping up and down on it like it was a parade float, screaming as though they won five national championships in one night. I wouldn't have had a problem if they were doing this immediately after they had won 52-0. Doing it before the game when you're three-touchdown underdogs was alcohol-fueled insanity.
At the alligator statue at the north end zone entrance, there was one overweight 'Canes fan posing for a picture of himself -- well, there's no way of putting this delicately. He was humping the mouth of the statue.
I have no idea what thrusting one's pelvis into the maw of an alligator statue is supposed to accomplish or represent. Was this degenerate demonstrating how he would pleasure himself with a live alligator should he overpower one into submission? I'm sure if I did a Google search, I can find a website dedicated to oral sex fantasies that involve two-ton prehistoric reptiles that can bite a canoe in two.
Or maybe -- let's see how I can phrase this euphemism -- he's not afraid of losing his ticket into the paper shredder because he's already dealing with a scalped ticket. Can you say "StubHub"?
Reality used to be a friend of theirs
This is not news, to report that Miami has an overeager fan base with a testosterone level that would disqualify several small countries from Olympic competition. But when your team is rebuilding, don't act as though you're carrying the caulk gun that's going to seal up another national title by the time cocktail hour is over. Are Miami Hurricanes fans this delusional in their everyday life? For example, let's meet a Hurricanes fan who works in the medical field:
Hurricane fan doctor: "I'm sorry, but there's no way we can avoid amputating your leg."
Patient: "Really? That seems delusional, because I'm here for an eye exam."
Doc: "Oh? My bad. GO 'CANES!!!"
Or car mechanics:
Hurricane mechanic: "Pal, I'm afraid we're going to have to replace your entire transmission and A.C. compressor."
Driver: "Really? That seems delusional, because I'm here to get a stereo installed."
Mechanic: "Oh? My bad. GO CANES!!! WHOOO!!!"
Or ... 'Canes fan: "Yeah! I won the lottery! I'm rich! I'm getting season tickets for life!"
Fan's friend: "Uh, you won $7 on a scratch-off ticket. And that was off of $25 worth of tickets that you bought at the gas station. So overall you've lost $18."
Fan: "Oh? My bad. But how much do you think it costs to buy an alligator statue to have sex with?"
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| Like Matt Leinart, Tim Tebow is a god at his college. Unlike Leinart, the girls at UF don't offer much incentive. (Getty Images) |
My failed ticket quest
Here's the main reason why I'm mad at the 'Cane parade: Because so many delusional Hurricanes fans showed up willing to pay top dollar to see their own bloodbath, I was cut out from securing my rightful pair of tickets. I had driven from Columbia, S.C., to Gainesville on a whim to score some tickets. Yes, it's now considered an historic rarity to see the 'Canes in The Swamp, but I figured it would be within reason to score tickets for under $100 each. I don't need great tickets, I just wanted to get in the building. Nosebleeds are perfectly acceptable; I clot quickly.Instead, I was hearing offers for tickets going for $200 apiece -- and that was AFTER kickoff. Doesn't supply and demand allegedly dictate that the ticket price drops dramatically once the game starts? The hope is you meet an elderly alum trying to pass along two tickets for friends who canceled at the last minute. But there's no reasoning with the greasy professional scalper types. As one told me:
"Hey, I paid $120 for these tickets, and I ain't out here to lose money."
Or you could actually go inside the stadium and watch the game with that ticket, which is what WE'RE trying to do, you greedy, greasy fool.
Early in the day, someone at a street corner wanted $200 apiece for seats in the eighth row. Looking back, that now seems a downright bargain. I didn't meet a friend all day who scored a ticket for under $110.
I accept the blame that I could have worked harder and longer through the day to nab tickets some way, some how. And the fact that this game set a Florida Field attendance record of 90,833 means I'm even more jealous that there wasn't room for me in the cheap seats. Still, if more Hurricanes fans had faced the fact that they had no business attending this game, I might have found someone willing to dump a pair of tickets for, say, $80 apiece.
But the joke was on anyone who caved in to the inflation. The game was an artistic snoozer for the first three quarters. It was hardly in line with the epic orgasms of old. Hurricanes fans were better off staying in South Florida and using that $200 to solicit a sex act from an alligator in the Everglades. OK, maybe that wouldn't happen in real life. But Carl Hiaasen's going to read this article and work that idea in as a plot device in his next novel, and it will sound like something that really could happen.
This is a team on the rebound?
Here's the thing that made me maddest as I learned about the game from TV, newspapers and the bloggers.
The Hurricanes are being treated like a newly resurgent program. That this is the first step toward another national title run down the road.
I don't buy it. But I did believe it at first. I've come to realize there were a lot of optical illusions at work in the game, but it's time to set the record straight.
Yes, the 'Canes won the time of possession battle (31:06-28:54). Yes, ball control worked to a point to keep Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin off the field. Yes, they kept the score to 9-3 through three quarters.
But I have never seen a team that played not to lose be so celebrated as being on the brink of returning to its explosive roots. If you can spin 79 yards passing and 61 yards rushing into reasons why they're on the doorstep of another run of glory days, I'd love to hear it.
Randy Shannon couldn't have played his conservative offensive game plan any closer to the vest than if he had a vest tattoo covering his torso.
At no time did the Hurricanes lead on the scoreboard. Their only points came on a 50-yard field goal. Otherwise, the young offense never got within sniffing distance of the end zone.
Indeed, it took until a Gator 29-yard field goal with 25 seconds left to cover a 22.5-point spread. But as Shakespeare once wrote: "Tis better to covereth in the closing seconds then to be out a wad of dough the rest of the weekend. Now, knave, recite for me the spreads in thine West Coast games."
If you need any insight into the psyche of Urban Meyer, look no further than his decision to go for the figgie in that situation. It basically screams, "I don't care about any repercussions from the Hurricane fan base, because I plan to be in the NFL by the time our 2013 rematch at Dolphin Stadium rolls around."
If the Hurricanes want to impress me from here out, win 8-10 games and the ACC title game. Go to your hometown BCS Orange Bowl game and beat the Big East champ. The rest of their schedule is weaker than a one-legged kitten. After a bye week, they're at Texas A&M, home against North Carolina, Florida State, Central Florida, at Duke, Wake Forest, at Virginia, bye week, Virginia Tech and at Georgia Tech on consecutive Thursday nights, at N.C. State.
If Miami can't score eight wins out of that, they better start lining up Notre Dame on the docket -- before the Hurricanes turn into the next dynasty that will never reclaim its luster.
The perfect storm
I'll try to stop crying now about failing to secure Florida-Miami tickets. There's a little song and dance called supply and demand that sets the ticket price. And I was on the wrong end of it.
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| Is it still possible to claim to be the 'U' and be so thoroughly thrashed? (Getty Images) |
Meanwhile, Hurricanes fans, get a grip on yourselves. Until you do, I declare that you have lost your Gainesville privileges. I forbid you from entering Ben Hill Griffin Stadium until at least 2016. I banish thee!
Remember, everyone entered 2008 conceding it was to be a down year for the ACC -- which is a conference that year-in, year-out is considered one of the weakest power conferences in the country anyway. What does it say if you can't run that rickety table?
Or, you can also impress me by inventing a time machine, going back to Saturday night and handing me your ticket while I'm trying to avoid watching one of your brethren commit lewd acts upon an alligator sculpture.
I'll even let you put down a bet with me on the Hurricanes at plus-22½. Go 'Canes! Whoo!